I have a question. When did Rowan and Cip decide to be in a relationship? Was there a moment I missed? When was the last time we saw these two have a conversation? There must have been a first kiss. There must have been some kind of declaration or moment not orchestrated by Lasher, right? And none of that happened onscreen? We’ve really just skipped right to sharing a bed and midnight spats over Rowan’s Precious. But Mayfair Witches is best enjoyed for its attention to vibe rather than continuity, and “Transference†was a real triumph in the vibe department.
On the witch side of things, we learn that the Mayfairs have collected pieces of dead designee and assembled them into a doll (her head is Deborah’s hip bone!), which they use for ritual purposes. Elsewhere in New Orleans, our favorite medical examiner is using Deirdre’s pickled heart to chase MRA clout. I don’t know if it’s any more worthwhile to parse the heavy-handed attempt at feminism here than it is to try connecting plot points from one Mayfair Witches episode to another (like, you get it, right?) when we can talk about the silly spooky stuff instead.
Rowan is still very much tethered to Lasher, whether she likes it or not, and his ability to pop up at the foot of her bed at 2 a.m. and snark on her leftover takeout is and is not related to the necklace. Lasher doesn’t go away when she takes the necklace off, but she also has a full-on Smeagol moment when Ciprien tries to take it away from her. This little episode freaks her out so much that she becomes singularly focused on severing her connection to Lasher to the exclusion of all other concerns — including Cousin Tessa’s warning that they’re all about to be hate-crimed, which is short sighted.
In fairness to Rowan, no one in the family, including Tessa, understands why she’s so uncomfortable with a murderous entity taking up permanent residence in her mind. (Rowan even tries to speak teen: “He’s trolling me.â€) The rest of the Mayfairs would kill to have Lasher watch them sleep and goad them into breaking Aunt Carlotta’s neck and dress them in cute little blue outfits. Not that anyone has stepped up to offer Rowan any practical advice, either, which is how she winds up buying Uncle Cortland’s help with treatment advice for his ALS. Conceding that his lung function is as impaired as she says, Cortland begrudgingly advises Rowan that it might be possible to transfer Lasher to another Mayfair witch, but it’ll be risky.
Dolly Jean, the head witch in charge, who’s project managing this transferral ritual, warns Rowan that losing Lasher might also take away some of her powers, such as her “medical intuition.†But Rowan is unconvinced that Lasher’s influence is a substitute for ten years of medical experience and responds something to the effect of “I am woman, hear me roar. A witch needs a Lasher like a fish needs a bicycle.â€
Rowan is theoretically willing to do whatever it takes to get rid of Lasher, but no one told her it would include a doll made of the bones, teeth, and hair of her ancestors. She’s fairly grossed out and very reluctant to braid her dead mother’s hair into bits of witch corpse, but, like, girl, grow up. Dolly Jean doesn’t have time for this. Either you’re in or you’re out, and if you’re in, you’re gonna have to do some witch shit. Act like a Mayfair, in other words. So Rowan sucks up that gag reflex, shuts off her rational mind, and kisses the damn bone doll like everyone else.
In order for this to work, all of the dead Mayfair designees have to give their blessing, Lasher needs to choose someone else to hang himself on from among the assembled coven, and someone else has to choose him in return. Also Rowan has to chant the magic words “Mi Daemon, ad me veni. Mi Daemon, mihi labora. Mi Daemon, me libera.†But she has to chant like she really means it, not like she’s reciting the Pledge of Allegiance; she has to say it with her chest. Only when Rowan really gets into it, and her eyes have rolled back into her head and she’s fallen to her knees in the middle of the circle of Mayfairs, does Lasher deign to appear (though she’s never had to work this hard to get his attention before). And he seems a little offended. “All of this to be rid of me?†he asks. Yes, bro.
Rowan falls into a dramatic coughing fit as she hacks up the necklace, pulling it by the chain from her throat. This would seem to be a sure sign that something has happened. With great ceremony, Dolly Jean passes the necklace in front of all the women one by one. Who has Lasher chosen? The necklace sort of hums when it gets to Tessa, which would make her the new Witch Princess. Congratulations to her, maybe.
While Rowan is bonding with her long-lost relatives in the weirdest possible way, the hardest-working necklace in show business has another job this episode — transporting Ciprien’s consciousness to 17th-century Scotland and giving the Scottish plot a purpose. Cip has taken the necklace to the padded interrogation room at Talamasca headquarters, intending to use his magic fingers to figure out the whole Lasher-Mayfair-necklace connection.
Most of us had already worked out (or knew from reading the books) that Suzanne the midwife had to be the originator of the Mayfair witch bloodline. Now we finally see how that happened. And it was all men’s fault, of course. Unseen by anyone else, Cip watches Suzanne be charged with witchcraft. She tries to remind the villagers of all the times she’s treated their illnesses and they’ve gotten better, but the witch catcher decides this is proof that Suzanne must have made a deal with the devil to get the power to cure people. I love logic. To settle the question once and for all, the village decides on my favorite of all historical witch tests: lock her in a big bird cage and throw her in the river. If she drowns, she isn’t a witch. If she doesn’t drown, she is a witch and must be burned to death. Logic! Men! The worst, right?
Anyway, here’s where it all finally starts coming together. The witch catcher wore the key to Suzanne’s cage on a long chain, and this became the necklace. As she’s about to be lowered into the lake to drown, her sister screams at her to use the “wicked words.†You know the ones: “Mi Daemon, ad me veni. Mi Daemon, mihi labora. Mi Daemon, me libera.†The whole village starts to go up in flames, and Lasher appears. It’s really a “who rescued whom†situation, you know?
Back in the 21st century, Tessa decides to use her new designee powers to try this trick again. Only instead of being hauled out of her home by her hair, Tessa seeks the modern witch hunters out. After posting about it on the manosphere, the medical examiner has offered Deirdre’s preserved heart to his incel god-king as a sign of his misogyny bona fides, I guess, and Tessa wants it back. But her catfishing attempt doesn’t go quite as planned. “Transference†ends on another cliffhanger as Tessa is ambushed by a horde of angry MRAs who 100 percent plan to burn her alive.
Loose Ends, Predictions, and Concerns
• For a powerful dynastic family that’s been in New Orleans for at least a hundred years, the Mayfairs are a remarkably racially diverse bunch. But perhaps it’s wiser not to investigate that much further. This is the feminism show. See IWTV for racial politics in New Orleans.
• Rowan turned down Jojo’s hospital job offer because she says she already has a job in San Francisco. Does she, though?
• I don’t want Tessa to be toast, but I feel like Tessa is probably toast.